sendmail: /etc/aliases and .forward

we have an address that is expanded out to several users. It seems that sendmail does processes the address the same regardless of whether the address is 'defined' in /etc/aliases or in the address's /home/.forward file.

The goal is to have the address's list expanded out only after the message passes through the system wide procmailrc, which I thought could be accomplished by using the .forward instead of an entry in the /etc/aliases .